Thursday, December 19, 2013

Three Types of Behaviors by Dr. Marcia McEvoy

The following post was written by Dr. Marcia McEvoy during the Spring of 2013. After reading this post I immediately knew Dr. McEvoy "gets it". Please read and see for yourself -

The word “bullying” has taken
an interesting turn. For the past 15
years, I have been working with staff, students, and parents all over Michigan
and the Midwest to reduce student cruelty and to help students develop
tolerance and empathy. When I first started
this work many years ago, I had to convince school personnel and parents that
bullying was a problem. The response I so often received was “This is a normal rite of passage. It is kids being kids. If we don’t let them fight their own battles,
we will surely raise a generation of wimps.”

Today, with the increasing
media attention to violence in schools nation-wide, the responses to my
question “what is bullying” have strikingly shifted. I often hear from parents and students that asinglepush in the hall or getting called a name is “bullying.”However, we would all be much better served
if we stopped branding every aggressive behavior as bullying. There are three groups of students who engage
in hurtful behavior. Only the last group
truly meets the definition of bullying.

Thefirstand largest of
these three groups are students who are typically caring and have a
conscience. They engage in sporadic
cruel behavior towards peers for a variety of reasons which usually involve getting
a laugh, showing-off, attention-seeking, or attempting to fit into a
group. Students in this category aren’t
even thinking about how their bad choices are impacting the targets. The behavior of these students is relatively
easy to modify with consistent consequences and serious discussions about the
negative impacts of their behavior.

Thesecondgroup of students
who engage in aggressive behavior are also good kids with a conscience, but
struggle with impulse control, frustration tolerance, and anger
management. They are frequently
“hot-headed” and will lash out at peers when they are mad, frustrated, or are
not getting their needs met. These
students need a combination of consistent consequences for acts of aggression,
and social skills training. They respond
well to positive behavior support practices, including positive precision
feedback, positive notes and calls to parents for behavioral improvement, and
mentoring. Included in this second group
are friends or classmates who have a disagreement or misunderstanding that
occasionally escalates into cruel words or actions. Teaching all students problem-solving skills
and conflict resolution skills would go a long way toward reducing this type of
aggression.

Thethirdgroup of students
who engage in aggressive behavior are those who not only lack a conscience or
empathy, but seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. Their hurtful behavior gives them an
adrenaline rush. By many estimates, this
is about 2 percent of the population of any school. These kids engage in repetitive, intentional
patterns of cruelty aimed at students with less power than them (physical,
social, emotional). These students
engage in chronic, habitual bullying.
Modifying their behavior takes strenuous and sustained effort, but is
critical in mitigating a potential life path as a narcissistic or sociopathic
adult who may negatively impact hundreds of people during their lifespan.

All three groups of students
will be served by developing a consequence rubric for aggression that is fair,
consistent and predictable. At the same
time, it is important to weave social skills training, conflict-resolution
skills, empathy development, and tolerance for differences into the K-12
curriculum. Adults must also build
positive relationships with aggressive youth.
Students who have caring relationships with staff are much less likely
to be cruel.Instead of labeling every
aggressive behavior as bullying, we need to recognize that there are various
types of mean behavior. We can then
create broad-based solutions to prevent cruelty of all kinds, whether it is
simply an escalating disagreement among friends, an impulsive act, or true
bullying.